St. George's present new players

St. George’s presented their new players during a press conference which was held at the Cospicua local council premises – the club’s premises for around fifty years before moving to their current premises – on Saturday.

The squad was strengthened with the signing of seven new players, namely goalkeeper Ryan Marmara from Swieqi United, Karl Magro and Mark Anthony Bonnici from Hamrun, Alan Abela from Floriana, Klinsmann Grech and Amadeo Mercieca from Sliema and foreigner Reda Boutahir who joins Jonathan Ruiz who was confirmed from last season.
St. George’s president Chris Agius said that once again the club will be aiming for promotion. He said that following the appointment of experienced coach Robert Kelly as their new mentor, the club’s main objective was to strengthen the squad in order to be able to challenge for this target. He said the club said he believed in Kelly’s potential.

The St. George’s president revealed the committee embarked on a four-year programme which leads to the year 2015 when the club will be celebrating 125 years since its foundation. Hopefully by that time, the club would have established itself once again among the elite of local football.

The club plans to have their own training facilities. A project the committee is working on and details on which would hopefully be released soon.

St. George’s is also waiting for the outcome of the pending case of compensation for the suspended players following the First Division match against rivals Vittoriosa Stars in December 2008. Chris Agius said the club had suffered in many ways because of that case and now expects justice by due compensation – a decision on which is expected on September 14.

New coach Robert Kelly thanked Chris Agius and the committee for having faith in him and said he is glad to be back at the club he had already coached in past.

He said the club tried to strengthen the squad but unfortunately a number of injuries during pre-season will rule out a number of players from the opening matches. However the team will still aim at collecting precious points from these matches.

Also present for the press conference were team captain Emmanuel Sevasta and club secretary Demis Scerri.